Feelers (5 page)

I know what you are thinking, Father Gomez. Once the gang had the truck where they wanted it, they no longer needed the inside man, and by burning him in the truck, they would no longer have to give him his share of the money.

Doused in flames, the truck doors flew open, and the guards emerged, guns drawn, and the brothers shot them down and grabbed the money. In the process, one of the brothers caught himself on fire and ran off across the parking lot like a rocket sled trailing smoke.

It is anybody’s guess how such a ridiculous plan could succeed. The fast-burning fuel did not even set the truck on fire, so the guards did not need to come out and get wounded or killed at all.

I think it is interesting, though, how many good plans do not work when dumb ones do. How untalented people excel, lazy sons of bitches get rich, and bad people often win. I would say this in itself makes a good case for the impish hand of fate touching our lives. Perhaps that is not a very Christian thing to say, and I hope it does not off end you, Father. Unless that imp is the devil, yes?

Anyway, Danny was in a plumbing van parked just up the lot, and the brothers hustled in with the canvas bags and their smoldering brother, who was badly injured and needed medical attention.

So they drove away to their chosen safe house down on the edge of the salt marsh near Flatlands Avenue. It was a shabby weather-beaten bungalow, just the type of place where you would expect to find a gang of criminals, with mattresses strewn on the floor and piles of cheap food and beer for them to hold up for a while.

At first the burned brother was sort of in shock and tried to shrug off his injuries—his hair was all gone, and when they peeled his shirt off his skin came off, too. Disgusting, I know. So they went to the pharmacy and bought a pile of ointments and lathered it all over their brother like jam on burnt toast. But the pain set in, as did an infection, and they needed professional help for their brother.

That is how they ended up in Coney Island, on the boardwalk. They had heard that the Russians there were very secretive, that you could go to them for things you did not want the police to know about. They fished around bars and restaurants for a discreet doctor, and as so often happens, this got back to the police. What they did not understand was that the Russians could be very secretive with other Russians, but these three redheads were as foreign to them as the police. Next thing you know, they all come to meet and transport this doctor to their injured brother. The cops swoop in. Guns are drawn, lives are lost. In the pocket of one of the brothers is the address of the safe house.

And there is poor Danny at the safe house icing down the torched brother, who is screaming his head off from the agony of his wounds. The police waltz in and arrest them both. The
burned brother died a week later. Delores went to prison as an accessory and after only three weeks was killed in a knife fight. Danny went to prison in a deal with the prosecutor, where he stayed for fifteen years.

The money had, of course, been moved from the safe house to the home of Danny’s Uncle Cuddy on Vanderhoosen Drive.

WHEN I AWOKE AND WENT
to the bathroom is when I saw Fanny sprawled facedown on the bed, twisted in the sheets like she was in the grasp of a white octopus’s tentacle. She had a beautiful back—and I don’t mean her behind. I would like to think men appreciate many of the curvaceous and delicate features of a woman’s body beyond the more obvious charms, and that we are not adequately credited for doing so. A wide, tapering back with velvety sloping shoulders is as alluring as swelling breasts. The nape is another part of a woman you do not hear much about, the slender delicious contour of the neck to the shoulder. The indentation at the small of the lower back is another excellent spot on a woman’s body. It promises the delights of what is below, and is sometimes covered in a very light hair that is sensuous and tantalizing to the touch. And one must not overlook the navel, which is like some small beckoning and delectable fruit.

By the time I got back from my pee, she was sitting up, clutching her knees with the sheets pulled around her. At first she was frowning, and I was worried that she had regrets about coming home with me.

“Good morning,
querida,
” I purred, sitting gently next to her. There are some Spanish words that are indispensable—the endearments.

Her full lips betrayed a quizzical smile. “
Querida?
”

“It means lovely.”

Hugging her knees tighter, she said, “Do you have to go to work?”

I brushed some of the dark curls from her round face. “Not today. I have a few calls to make, but . . .”

“I have to be at Tangles at nine. Will you drive me?”

“Of course, yes. But you have time, let me make us some coffee.”

She pouted slightly, slipping back into thoughts that looked like regret. “I betcha think I’m a little . . . I mean, the first night . . .”

“It was meant to be, our union. Was there any sense in delay?”

She looked around my Spartan room. The empty champagne glasses. The cold duck bottle on the dresser. She heaved a great sigh.

“It doesn’t look like you’ve lived here very long. Or that you’re staying.”

I shrugged. “I appreciate simplicity. Life is more adaptable that way.”

“Adaptable?”

“If my landlord is a huge pain in the ass, I rent a van and move, it is that simple. There are no dining room tables, china cabinets, and other cumbersome furnishings that would inhibit me to consider a move. But I have lived here seven years. Come, let us have coffee.”

With the white sheet wrapped around her like the toga on a
Greek goddess, she followed me into the living room and perched on a stool at the breakfast bar. I set about preparing the coffee as she continued to interrogate me.

“Why are all those things on the floor? Looks like there was an earthquake.”

Of course, I had not had time to return all my belongings, the ones used to flatten the tight ones, back to the shelves and cabinets. I wasn’t about to tell her the truth. I didn’t know her well enough to tell her I was sitting on a large sum of cash.

“Or,” she continued, “it looks like someone tossed the place looking for something.”

I flashed a toothy smile. “I was going to clean the shelves when I realized I did not have anything to clean the shelves with. Then I got wrapped up in business . . .”

“The house you cleaned on Vanderhoosen?”

“Yes. And then I decided the cleaning could wait when I stopped to have a drink with some associates at Oscar’s. I have never seen you there before, and was frankly surprised that such a beautiful woman would come to such a place.”

Her big brown eyes met mine briefly. “I don’t know why, either. Maybe you’re right, it was meant to be or something.”

I placed a carton of milk and a bowl of sugar on the bar, then reached across and took her chin gently in my hand. “
Querida,
why the worried face?”

She bit her lip. “I never did something like this before. I’m afraid.”

“I used a condom. What is to fear?”

“Ooo, not that, Morty, jeese. I mean . . . this is kinda sudden. I don’t even know you.”

“Me? I am the man making you coffee and driving you to work. Now, what does that tell you?”

Fanny squirmed uncertainly. “Dunno.”

“Is it the kind of man who doesn’t have a heart? I could say I had to go to work and let you take a bus. I could have rushed you out of my apartment. Yes?”

“You sure you were cleaning your shelves?”

Women amaze me. Their minds work on so many levels at once.

“Why else would all those things be on the floor? Why else would I take everything off the shelves except to clean them?”

“Mmm.”

“Well, what sinister reason do you think there might be for all my belongings to be on the floor?”

“I dunno, but I don’t like things thrown around like that. It looks wrong. It looks like you’re leaving.”

“Fanny, listen to me.” I clasped her hand across the bar. “Unless you decide otherwise, I would very much like to see you again.”

“When?”

“Tonight, tomorrow night . . .”

“Can we clean up your place tonight?”

What in the name of God was this woman on about? (I’m not really asking you, Father Gomez, even though you may have an idea.) But I am an accommodating man. I know the female has many peculiarities that must sometimes be humored. And if she was so intent on helping me clean up, why not? This was probably a domestic impulse. So I laughed and waved a hand across my dwelling.

“If that would please you . . . of course.” I poured her a cup of coffee. “Milk? Sugar?”

Now she seemed less uneasy and picked up her coffee with the first real smile of the day. “Black is good, with an ice cube. And
yes, it would please me. You know, Morty, you have a funny way of talking, even for a Latino. It’s like you’re not from Brooklyn at all.”

I was not sure what she meant, or if it was an insult, so my sunny mood wavered. I dropped an ice cube in her coffee. Why the ice cube? I have found it is better to relish rather than question a woman’s adorable eccentricities. “How do you mean?”

As she sipped her coffee, her eyes looked up into mine from under the long sultry lashes. “You’re cute.”

“Cute?” I must say, it is my belief that no man wants to be “cute.” It suggests he is like a small rabbit or fluffy yellow baby duck—a threat to no one, incapable of self-defense. Is there such a thing as a
cute
matador? Again, I tried to smile because I knew it meant she liked me.

She stood and swayed toward the bedroom with her coffee mug. At the bedroom doorway, she paused, and the sheet slipped down her back all the way to the fuzzy spot that is sensuous and tantalizing to the touch. Half turning, her slender delicious nape curved seductively, she almost looked at me. Instead she smiled to herself and moved slowly out of view.

I followed, and I was not cute.

NOW LET ME TELL YOU
how I first saw Danny in person after driving Fanny to Tangles. To explain this, I must explain how he came to be in East Brooklyn, trying to accustom himself to the outside world. It began, as you know, the very morning I found the tight ones, continuing through the previous day to when Fanny was sitting at my breakfast bar draped in a sheet like a Greek goddess.

Danny walked all the way from Queens to Brooklyn. Why would he do such a thing? I guess if you had been in prison for fifteen years, a long walk in one direction without fences or walls would seem a luxury. And so it was for Danny.

Along the way, he noticed a lot of people talking into cell phones. He had no idea that so many people actually had them. From watching TV in Sing Sing, he thought maybe this might be so in California. Some people even had ones that plugged into their heads, and they just talked as if they were crazy and muttering to themselves. Danny could not imagine what all these people could be talking about so continuously.

He needed to call his sister for a place to stay, and the pay phones he tried were all either broken or expensive or so confusing that
he didn’t know how to make them work. So he stopped in at a store that said they sold cell phones.

“Good afternoon. I need a cellular phone.”

The clerk was in chinos and red sport shirt, like any of the legions of people selling cell phones at malls across America. Except this one had dreadlocks and a gold tooth and a lip ring. Danny thought he’d fit in nicely at Sing Sing.

“Sure. You have one now?”

“No, this would be my first.”

The clerk snorted. “Yow. OK, this one here is a good one, it’s new, you know?”

“How much is it?”

The clerk went on for about five minutes on all the features, multimedia, messaging . . . Danny didn’t understand any of it, so finally interrupted.

“Thank you for the information, but I just need a phone, and a phone only.”

“Bargain basement, huhn?” The clerk snorted again. “Then you might as well take one of these bubble pack phones.”

“I’ll need you to demonstrate it, please.”

“Damn. Ain’t you even used a cell phone before?”

Danny stared into the middle distance. “I’ve been out of town.”

The clerk began clearing his throat. He knew what that meant and saw the ex-con glaze in Danny’s eye. “OK, that’s cool, don’t worry about it, man, I’ll show you how it works, it’s real easy, nothing to worry about.”

“I’m sorry, do I look worried?”

Now Danny’s ice blue eyes were trained on him.

“No, man, no. I was jus’ sayin’, since you never used a cell
phone before and all, that, you know, there’s no reason you can’t easily learn how to use one in just a few minutes.” The clerk struggled with the bubble package but finally opened it and showed Danny how the phone worked and sent him on his way.

On the sidewalk in front of the store, Danny carefully dialed his sister’s number.

“Hello?” It was a nasally male voice.

“It’s Danny,” he said uncertainly. “Is Clara in?”

“Who is this?”

“This is Danny. Who am I speaking to?”

“Who did you want to speak to?”

“Clara. She’s my sister.”

“Why you calling here?”

“This is her number.”

“Something wrong with you?”

Danny was getting impatient, and repeated the number he dialed. “Did I misdial?”

“That’s this number, my number.”

There was a pause.

“I’m sorry. Then she must have changed numbers?”

“What’re you, a fucking idiot? This is my number.”

“Do you live at 901 East 109th Street?”

“This is also my house. Get off my phone.”

The man hung up, and it took a moment for Danny to realize it—until he looked at the tiny screen and saw that the phone said
DISCONNECTED
.

Danny slid the phone into his inside jacket pocket, next to ice pick number three. He walked down the block and around the corner onto 109th Street, and in five minutes he was at the door to 901 East 109th Street.